Question

Summarize Immanuel Kant's Ethical Theory.

Answer 1

Immanuel Kant, -1724 to 1804-, was a german philosopher whose thoughts are as complex as important for modern world. Let`s try to summarize Kant`s ethics thru an example: a kidnapper takes a young boy in exchange for a ransom. The police finds him, they have evidence he killed the boy, but he refuses to reveal the location of the dead body. The boy`s family is suffering a lot. Then, a police officer, feeling frustrated, and really  willing t locate the boy`s body to relief the suffering from his family, tortures the kidnapper, in order to obtain his confession. And he gets it, so they finally find the boy`s corpse, bringing relief to the family.

If you ask Kant what he thinks abou it, he probably would say that both men, the kidnapper and the police officer acted wrongfully, because you cannot USE a person as a MEANS to obtain something: you can undermine a person`s freedom for money, as you cannot inflict pain to obtain a result, and this is because there is a universal, doubtless supreme moral rule: people are no means, people are no objects, hence, they can not be used as such.